Sorting puppies

A couple of weeks ago we were at a museum display about hurricanes and how they affect the coastline and the outer banks. One of the problems that has to be dealt with is lost pets. There was a woman that came up with a brilliant idea to simplify the process for owners looking for their pet after the event is over.
In the past, the animals would go to a shelter until the place was full and then they would fill the next shelter and on and on. Then the people would try to compile lists and take pictures and pet owners would wander from shelter to shelter looking for their pet. It didn't work well and many pets were never reunited with their owners.

This woman's brilliant plan was to sort the animals BEFORE they go to the shelters. Big black dogs go to this shelter, little white dogs go to that shelter. pet owners would then simply go to the long-eared-brown-mutt shelter and "paw" through the choices. It worked. It worked very well. It could be a possible model for sorting people in hospitals after a disaster except it would probably seem like discrimination against the body type of whomever had the crummy hospital.

One notable flaw inherent to a plan like this: The veterinarian whose kennel was chosen to house the Beagles is still angry and has NOT forgiven the rescue team.
..........beagles.
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"ooops, somebody broke the latch and they all escaped last night."

Hey man, what's your sign?

At the very long bridge at Roanoke Island heading towards the Outer Banks.
There are a LOT of birds in that area.

Note: there were many piles of feathers all along the bridge.

A product that I...

A product that I thought was interesting. I swear this is not an example of a paid product placement. This just happens to be a product that should receive as much exposure as possible. Do we have any readers who would like to share their experiences with this fine product?
Really, I am not a paid spokesman. I am an unpaid endorser.
(available at your local Northern Tool retail outlet)

Woodmen of the World.

Another interesting sculpture that we saw on the side of the road.
Woodmen of the World, we pay our respects.

2007-09-27_wm Tree

Some pictures for those who love boonin'

I know the last thing most of you want to see is more pictures of cars, but there are some friends of ours who are Sportsmen. Their sport is BOONIN'. To the unitiated I would like to explain that the ancient sport of boonin' consists of taking a Jeep, truck, buggy, sand-doodle, 4-wheeler, 6-wheeler, or tracked vehicle and going off-road until it hurts.
Mechanical damage is par for the course, physical discomfort is sought after.
They like it, they live for it, they want better, bigger, noisier, and usually they don't want to pay anything for it.

Driving around today I came upon these vehicles. They seem to be built from scratch with purchased components and long travel independent suspension and snorkles, rollbars, fancy straps to hold the lucky riders in, and various stickers to make them look official.

So this MAY look like an advertisement, but it is a picture show for Graham, Wes, Andrew, Stu, Kathy and all the other kids out there.

Boonin equipment

Word of the day.

The word of the day is PUD!

That's right, PUD.

Planned Unit Development

It's planned, there are lots of units, and they are done by developers.

Mayfaire and Southpoint are both PUDs.

It turns out that they are very popular down here in the South. Shopping, Main Street, ample parking, and convenient livin' all built into one piece.

Pick up local papers for any quaint little town in South Caarolina and chances are you will see an article about efforts to start or stop a PUD in the area.

See the Wikipedia definition here: PUD

A classic building in Wilmington.

One of the first days that Beth and I were cruising around Wilmington, we drove by a tire store that REALLY caught my eye. It looked like a classic old tire shop with the usual groups of tire changers working out front. There was just something a little different about it. This place is on a narrow tree lined road in an old section of town and traffic was moving pretty fast, so there was no way that I could stop. The next day was Sunday. In most towns in North Carolina things are preeeetty quiet on Sunday morning. I was able to park our van in the parking lot and I scurried across the street to take some pictures. This is a wonderful building.

Hughes Bros

Chapel Hill

We were cruising around the back roads in the Chapel Hill area.
Chapel Hill is an old-school city in North Carolina with and actual old school.
It seems to be a wealthy old school because all of the buildings are cleaned up, new, or newer.
The students that are everywhere in this town are all healthy looking and were all running, jogging, or at least walking very quickly. Very impressive.

We also saw a new-school area that is trying to be old-school.
They have a lot of antique advertisements on brick walls.

We looked at housing developments that were extremely pricey, extremely large and were being populated with extremely large and extremely boring homes.

We also found a beautiful road that was just a little behind on infrastructure improvements but things were being taken care of by the residents.

Telephone Pole

New School in NC

Chapel Hill Area Back Roads

Marmon HCM prototype

I recently got an email from someone who had made a film for a cable show.
It's a clip about a car that I really love. I had read about it a very long time ago but I had assumed that it was long gone. In 2002 I was in Kalamazoo and I saw this car displayed at a show. I went nuts. I crawled all over and under it, and then spent the afternoon giving tours to anybody that stopped to look at it. The owner had gotten the car as part of an auction lot but didn't know what it was. His mechanic, who had purchased the lot, did some research on the car and found out how important it was and said to the owner that "we've really got something here".
He made the decision to restore it the way it SHOULD be restored. He didn't realize what he was getting into. He stuck with it, way further than almost anyone else could afford to. What he ended up with is a perfect restoration that cost many times more than what it's resale value could be. He invested in a historical record and I thank him for it.

Here is the film clip that is on YouTube: HCM Movie

Here are the pictures of this car from Kalamazoo: HCM Photos

This is a little off topic, but I just opened this email and it brought back the memories of this car. I pulled out the pictures and loaded them up.

I am NOT missing (at this moment).

Chemo Sabe and (maybe others) seem to be stuck in DNS-heck.
I think that they keep jumping back to an older post and aren't seeing any of the "newer" ones. OK, there aren't a lot of them, well OK, there might be only ONE new one... but it's NEW and she ain't seein' it. So I stuck a little heading on that post suggesting that she refresh or type in the main http://bethandwarren.com address again.

... but what if everybody else is having the same problem? It could be a DNS problem...
I will check it on somebody else's computer right now, wait here, I'll be right back...
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OK, I'm back. The DNS is working, I think that you guys can read this properly, soooooo, we should all be saying to Chemo Sabe "HEY where ARE you!!!" etc etc.

P.S.
Chemo Sabe, if you are reading this: Welcome Back.

Checking in...

chemo sabe said...
Ok, now that post was on Wednesday...where ARE you guys!!!
Not stuck in Spooksville, I hope. I hope you kept a tight hold on Beffrie. That thar is Stepford wives country!! Did you check out the "work" link on that website! If that gal on the far right wasn't an android, than I'm going thru the Stargate tonite!!!
September 24, 2007 9:40 AM

chemo sabe said...
OK. It's Tuesday. If we don't hear from you tomorrow, we'll send out a search party!!!!
September 25, 2007 8:06 AM

Dear Chemo Sabe,
We are back. We slept late and I am eating my Cheerios. I will write. We are safe and we are not trapped in Stepford village. Sue was in the Wilmington area when Chris called and told her about the Mayfaire post and she drove right on over there. She didn't seem to be quite as amazed as I was because she is being surrounded by hundreds of stores here in Apex as we speak (I can see bulldozers through the window in front of me as they 'relocate' a pond closer to this house's property line to make more room for development).

I had another first this weekend. I was chatting with Steve about cities, suburbs, and communities and Steve started telling me about this new trend of building a whole town of shopping, and I responded with "I saw one of those!" and I talked excitedly about Mayfaire and Steve talked about the pros and cons of such a project.
Well I wasn't aware that I had already posted info about Mayfaire and Steve didn't remember that it was right here that he had found out about Mayfaire type developments. We were both talking about a subject from the same source without either of us being aware that I was the source. A double blind journalism test. Now this kind of double blind test would not be possible if I could remember what I had already written about, but that is the joy of writing things at midnight. Anyhow, my Cheerios are gone and Beth and Chris have made plans for us to see the Chapel Hill area today. I've got to get ready.

The Wedding.

Rachael & Jesse got married!
It was a wonderful event held on Bald Head Island in North Carolina.
We picked up Jenny, Ingrid, & Steve at the Wilmington airport and we drove to the ferry and were transported to an odd little place that is populated by a lot of golf carts and a few people.


Here are a few photos.

2007-09-22 Mr and Mrs

There are some more photos and some really funny things that happened.
We had no communications, but we are back on the mainland now.
We have traded the beach, alligators, and golf carts for the internet.
Good night (or good morning if appropriate).
ww